2010 Volume 15 Pages 69-74
The lustrous golden yellow silk produced by muga silkworm Antheraea assamensis (Helfer) is pride of India and endemic to North Eastern region in general and Brahmaputra valley in particular. The annual muga silk production in the country is 119 MT and major share comes from Assam state alone (99.0%). Though there is a great scope for improvement in terms of raw silk production and productivity, the industry is suffering from inherent problems i.e., such as poor performance of pre seed and seed crops in traditional states due to hostile climatic conditions that effects the timely supply of quality dfls in required quantities.
The attempts made by scientists of RTRS, Warangal in Chintapalli, Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh, a non traditional state reveals that the productivity in pre seed and seed crops is ranged between 50-68 cocoons/dfl against 12 to 25 cocoons of traditional state. The dfl multiplication ratio is in the range of 1:12 to 1:16 against 1:5 and 1:15. The rearing and grainage performance reveals that there is a great scope to develop Chintapalli in Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh as seed zone. Similarly Doon valley, Haldwani and Bhageshwar in Uttarakhand may also supplement the seed requirement of Assam during unfavorable season.
